America is a multicultural nation of immigrants. We are also a nation founded on law. President Obama’s move to grant amnesty to millions of illegals – without congressional approval - repudiates every tradition we hold dear.

Waiting until after November’s midterm elections, in which the
Democrats lost control of the Senate, Obama apparently decided
that he would not spend the next two years as a powerless,
quacking, lame duck leader.

Ignoring Congress, and by extension the American people, Obama
unilaterally decreed what he thought would best benefit this
mockery of a democracy. On Friday, aboard Air Force One -
apparently in an effort to invoke the lofty imagery of the
immortal gods - Obama signed an executive action that grants
amnesty to about five million illegal immigrants now living
across the country.

Yes, come right in, there’s plenty of room, we’ll have ourselves
a ball! Jobs and refreshments for everyone!

Genevieve Wood, a policy expert at The Heritage Foundation,
warned that Obama’s actions mirrored those of a king.

“Obama says he is not a “king,” but he acted exactly like one in
going forward with this executive action,” Wood wrote in the
Daily Signal. “Despite what Obama says, this was not
interpreting a law passed by Congress but creating a law Congress
had refused to pass.

Wood then took to fiery language one would expect to find around
the time of America’s Revolutionary War against the British
Crown.

“In America, we the people are not subjects. We are citizens.
We the people are calling on Congress to stand up to, not bow
down to, a president who thinks he’s a king.”

Republican Senator Ted Cruz also invoked warnings of an
“imperial presidency” when he wrote in Politico
Magazine, “When the president embraces the tactics of a
monarch, it becomes incumbent on Congress to wield the
constitutional power, it has to stop it.”

Is this lecturing from the other 50 percent of America’s limited
franchise based on legitimate concerns, or are the Republicans
merely throwing a hypocritical hissy fit because they are not the
ones occupying the throne on Pennsylvania Avenue?

At the same time, do Americans really have any legitimate right
to complain about Obama’s “overstretch” of executive powers?
Consider the last decade of wars that the Bush and Obama
administrations have launched without a hint of congressional
authorization. Did George W. Bush wait for congressional
authority before he launched a military invasion against the
sovereign state of Iraq for no good reason? Nope. Did Obama wait
to hear from “We the People,” or “Congress Incorporated” before
taking aggressive action against the sovereign state of Libya, as
well as six other fated states, including the ongoing bombardment
of Syria, said to be aimed at the Islamic State? Nope.

Let’s be honest: The only reason those decisions did not stir up
much domestic handwringing was because the fallout did not
directly land in our living rooms. The bombs were – and are –
falling on faraway places on men, women and children. A million
untold tragedies we’ll never know about. So we went back to our
usual routine without considering that one day an imperial decree
of a different sort would allow a wave of immigrants flooding
into America with very low prospects for both themselves, as well
as the Americans who have been here for years, and are now
struggling with the vestiges of the worst economic downturn since
the Great Depression. And now that the subject of presidential
overstretch has become personal we are suddenly foot-stomping
mad.

Whatever the case may be, the issue is certainly a monumental
one, which threatens to change the face of America in more ways
than one. These illegal immigrants from south of the border –
many of them children, some of them sick, all of them poor - are
being transported to destinations around the United States where
they are provided government assistance, a roof over their heads
and medical care. That’s not a plan, that’s just insane. No other
government in the world would tolerate such madness.

Like other modern democracies, the United States has a Department
of Immigration and Naturalization Service that manages an
integrated system of visa and work permits, paid for by the
taxpayers. Would it be asking too much for the border patrol to
round up these individuals and usher them to the back of the line
where they belong? Or is it really a wise policy to set an
example to millions of other would-be fence-jumpers by rolling
out the red carpet to those who make it across the Rio Grande
into American territory?

This brings up another question: What happened to America’s
border? How did it become so porous, to the point that young
children are able to make it across? Where are the drones, the
Humvees, the night-vision technologies, the snapping German
Shepherds? Did they all stay back in Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo
Bay? The United States has some of the most inescapable prison
systems in the world, yet we cannot build a viable fence to keep
out children along our southern border?

Meanwhile, we are spending billions of dollars on overseas
military adventures making enemies and fighting terrorists. But
if we left the back door to America wide open, then what good
will any of our overseas exploits amount to if the terrorists can
simply stroll into North America from South America? And while we
are on the subject, natural-born Americans themselves are daily
harassed, interrogated, sometimes even groped, just to board an
aircraft. Yet people arriving illegally in the country are given
the VIP frequent flier treatment.

Obama’s executive action has even forced me to agree with some
political commentators I normally find repulsive in their views.
Charles Krauthammer, for example, called Obama’s move a “gigantic
neon sign” at the Mexican border.

“This executive action is a gigantic neon sign on the Rio
Grande saying to Central Americans and to other people around the
world ‘If you wait in line and apply for legal immigration you’re
a sap’,” Krauthammer said in an interview with Fox News.
“You come here illegally, you have two children, and eventually
you will be legalized.”

“I would not oppose this if we were going to be serious about
shutting the border…This is an invitation to a mass
migration.”

On this one occasion, I would go one step further than the
irascible Krauthammer. Obama’s reckless executive action on
immigration is not just an invitation for mass migration. It’s an
invitation to the mass extinction of the American Dream.

Robert Bridge is the author of the book, Midnight in the American Empire, which
examines the destructive consequences of extreme corporate power
in the United States.

The statements, views and opinions expressed in this column are solely those of the author and do not necessarily represent those of RT.